Entpolitisierte Globalisierungsdiskussion

Informationszeitalter und Netzwerkgesellschaft bei Manuel Castells

Abstract

The article reviews Manuel Castells widely considered work The Information Age. lt is criticized as backing off from Castells' earlier urban social and political critique, while retreating his forrner Marxist analysis from any radical political content, both analytically and in its prescription. Instead Castells now moves forward enthusiastically into the description of a hi-tech society he sees as the overwhelming event of the present period, conflated with a loosely defined discussion of globalization. lt ends up, Marcuse argues, not simply in a depoliticized but an anti-political analysis of urban conditions, and thus contributes to an effectively conservative posture on relevant social urban issues and implicitly supports the superficial social democratic „Third Way" rhetoric now dominant in governing circles in England, Germany, and other countries.